My local Barnes & Noble has an entire bookcase dedicated to books on BookTok. How many BookTok books have you read? I’ve read fourteen!

Have created a new novel-writing approach for myself that I am calling Very Gentle Writing. Very Gentle Writing is an approach for people who live nearly every waking second in self-castigation and actually need peaceful slowness to unleash their creativity. 

Very Gentle Writing does not set staggering word count goals and then feel bad about it. No! Very Gentle Writing for me sets an extremely low word count and then feels magnificently productive when the low bar is exceeded (which is easy…it’s a low bar, I mean really low). 

Very Gentle Writing is about saying hey yo maybe I just want to listen to a chill playlist for a while and feel one sentence spill out. Go me! 

Very Gentle Writing is kind of about realizing I have a really limited amount of time to write in between work, and adulting, and taking care of a thousand life responsibilities, and trying to heal&deal from trauma in 2020. So I want that writing time to be….just…..nice. 

Very Gentle Writing means I have a goal of enjoying every single time I sit down to write. Really. I use all the fun words first. 

Very Gentle Writing came to me as an idea when I started to think about how as someone actively trying to recover from a lot of lifelong trauma, the usual word harder!! Work harder!! mantras in the world of “people doing hard things” didn’t motivate me at all, they only hurt me. I truly need a voice saying work less hard, personally.

Heroic Traits and Their Faults

Keep reading

Ohhh, this is good.

Beautiful snowy Jessie Mei Li as Alina Starkov❄️

that whole "make your characters want things" does so much work for you in a story, even if what your characters want is stupid and irrelevant, because how people go about pursuing their desires tells you about them as a person.

do they actually move toward what they desire? how far are they willing to go for it? do they pursue their desires directly or indirectly? do they acquire what they desire through force, trickery, or negotiation? do they tell themselves they aren't supposed to feel desire and suppress it? does the suppressed desire wither away and die, or does it mutate and grow even stronger? is the initially expressed desire actually an inadequate and poorly translated different desire that they lack language for? does the desire change once the language has been updated, or when new experiences outline the desire more clearly? do they want something else once they have better words for it, or once they know that they definitely don't want something they thought they wanted before?

how does the world accommodate those desires? what does the world present to your character and in what order to update and clarify their desires? how does your magic system or sci-fi device correspond to those desires and the pursuit of them?

there's so much good story meat on those bones; you just have to be brave and decisive enough to let characters want specific things instead of letting them float in the current of the plot.

and I loved the responses of “Well, my character is very passive and doesn’t know how to want things, the story is about their process of learning to do that exactly”, because that’s fine, that’s all well and good, but passive people still want things. passive human beings who have been so thoroughly neglected that the articulation of a single desire is beyond them want what their internal sphere of control tells them they are allowed to want. they desire constancy and a lack of conflict. they desire nostalgic artifacts that remind them of prior constancy and lack of conflict. the desire to float is an engineered desire that runs in conflict with the development of a happy healthy human being. Who engineered it? How do you begin to chip away at something like that? How do small, passive desires lead up to that?

"Everyone has motive" needs to be at the forefront of your thoughts. If a passive character wants something and yet does not act to achieve it, the crux of the story is WHY they are inactive. Therein lies your conflict and complications.

Writing Question of the Week #1

I thought it would be a good idea to ask a question related to writing every week to get us all sharing our opinions with one another about the same topic!

Reblog this post with your answer so more people can see this and participate! This week's question is:

What's your favourite part of the writing process and why?

I can't wait to read your answers! Let's get this conversation going!

mine is when i first start drafting! i usually don’t do too much outlining ahead of time, so beginning a draft is always so exciting and scary and fun. i love diving headfirst into a new draft and just seeing where the story will take me before i inevitably stall out lol

Magma Flowing Into The Pacific Ocean, Hawaii.

Writing Protagonists Without Strong Wants or Goals

Often in the writing world, we are told to make sure our protagonists have strong wants. After all, the protagonist’s want usually leads to a goal, and goals allow audiences to measure progress or setbacks in a story (which also helps with pacing). The protagonist’s pursuit of the goal often makes up most of the plot.

For change-arc protagonists, often what they want will be at odds with what they need. For most flat-arc protagonists, they often want the need, though sometimes they have to deal with a competing want or even lose sight of the need. (For more information on wants and needs, check out “Character’s Want vs. Need”) But if you aren’t familiar with the want vs. need approach, no worries. Suffice it to say that the protagonist’s want is almost always a key component of character arc, plot, and even theme.

So, must every protagonist absolutely have a powerful want driving them through the plot? Of course not. All “rules” are really more like guidelines. It’s just that if you break that rule, it will likely come at a steep cost, since it influences so many parts.

Because of the nature of story itself, it’s nearly impossible to have a protagonist who doesn’t want something significant by the end. Pretty much always the protagonist will have a want by the end of Act I. If not then, she will at least have a want or goal by the midpoint, at the latest–but that’s often pushing it. Rarely do protagonists make it through a whole story without having a clear significant want, though I won’t go so far as to say it’s impossible. And in some types of stories, you may be dealing with one significant want per section of the story.

Let’s talk about some situations where the protagonist doesn’t start with a driving want, goal, or hobby.

The Protagonist Already Has What He Wants

While in many stories the protagonist will start with a burning desire, in others, the protagonist already has everything he wants–or at least, is already on track for soon getting what he wants. There are a couple of ways this can play out.

1. His Lifestyle is Threatened

If the protagonist already has what he wants, one of the easiest ways to get the story rolling is to threaten what he already has. The threat may come as the inciting incident. In Shrek, Shrek already enjoys his life of solitude in the swamp, scaring off humans and bathing in mud. The inciting incident appears as a problem that threatens this: Other fairytale creatures are invading his home. For him, this stake is too high, and he must do something about it.

Alternatively, the lifestyle may not be threatened until near the end of Act I. For example, the inciting incident might be an opportunity that the protagonist declines–he already has everything he wants. However, something big threatens–or maybe even destroys–what he has, and he responds by taking the opportunity.

There are a few ways this can play out really, but the basic idea is that the protagonist loses, or is at risk of losing, what he already has. Often the goal is to get it back somehow–which means stopping or thwarting whatever the threat is. (However, with that said, it’s not impossible to give the character a new goal either.)

2. She Discovers a New Want

It might be that the protagonist already has everything she wants, but soon discovers something new she wants as well. Maybe she didn’t even know the wanted thing existed or was possible, until the inciting incident, or even a later point in the story. She thought her life was complete, but now realizes what she has isn’t enough.

I feel like this is something we see more with villains and anti-heroes–especially those depicted as spoiled, selfish, or entitled. But it doesn’t have to be. It could just be that the character is satisfied with life, but now yearns for more.

In The Hobbit, Bilbo is largely satisfied with his life–he has his creature comforts in his hobbit hole, and that’s all fine and well. But it isn’t until Gandalf arrives with the opportunity for adventure (and strives to persuade Bilbo into it) that Bilbo eventually embraces the fact that, in reality, he wants adventure (which, in some sense, is also what he needs).

The Protagonist is Wanting, but Lacks Vision (a Goal)

Sometimes a protagonist isn’t driven by a strong passion or goal, because he lacks vision. His life may be dissatisfying, but he can’t imagine any way to change that. It’s just the life he’s been dealt. It feels like something is lacking, but he doesn’t know what. Eventually, the character encounters something new that broadens his vision and leads to a concrete goal. The goal promises (at least to the protagonist) to fulfill what is lacking.

In Luca, Luca appears dissatisfied with his daily life, which seems to be made up of boring and repetitious chores, but he doesn’t really know of any other lifestyle. He later meets Alberto, who shows him an entirely new way of living. Soon Luca is filled with the same passions as Alberto and adopts the same goals.

Helpful Techniques

Having a story where the protagonist isn’t driven by a strong want, goal, or passion can have steep costs. There often isn’t a lot of tension, conflict, or driving force prior to the character gaining a want or goal. This is, again, in part because the goal helps give the plot context–if there is no goal, then what happens doesn’t really matter that much. The protagonist isn’t trying to get anywhere specific, and isn’t having to struggle to get there. This threatens to kill pacing and lose the audience.

Luckily, there are a few workarounds to help.

Another post by the always helpful September!

does anyone else remember the foxhole court bc that was so insane. for awhile the biggest thing on tumblr was a self published book series that no one outside of this website has ever heard of and that was never even published in physical form about a guy who fakes his name, age (by one year) and identity to join a sports team for a fake sport that the author invented for the series despite the fact that it was literally just lacrosse, after being on the run and changing his name hundreds of times because his mobster dad tried to sell him to a rival sports team that was actually owned by the japanese mafia. or something like that. and then every single subsequent thing that happened was somehow more batshit soap opera plotlines. this was literally the most popular book series on tumblr and was put on book rec lists alongside like, the great gatsby and donna tartt books. if I didn’t remember it so clearly I would assume I hallucinated this

oh and to be clear this series was not set in japan, the japanese mafia just owned an american college sports team and was super invested in it for some reason

WEBSITES FOR WRITERS {masterpost}

I hope this is helpful for you!

(Also, check my blog if you want to!)

10 Female Written Short Stories Everyone Should Read

I have seen a post circulating for a while that lists 10 short stories everyone should read and, while these are great works, most of them are older and written by white men. I wanted to make a modern list that features fresh, fantastic and under represented voices. Enjoy!

1. A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri — A couple in a failing marriage share secrets during a blackout. 

2. Stone Animals by Kelly Link — A family moves into a haunted house.

3. Reeling for the Empire by Karen Russell — Women are sold by their families to a silk factory, where they are slowly transformed into human silkworms. 

4. Call My Name by Aimee Bender — A woman wearing a ball gown secretly auditions men on the subway. 

5. The Man on the Stairs by Miranda July — A woman wakes up to a noise on the stairs. 

6. Brownies by ZZ Packer — Rival Girl Scout troops are separated by race. 

7. City of My Dreams by Zsuzi Gartner — A woman works at a shop selling food-inspired soap and tries not to think about her past. 

8. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor — A family drives from Georgia to Florida, even though a serial killer is on the loose. 

9. Hitting Budapest by NoViolet Bulawayo — A group of children, led by a girl named Darling, travel to a rich neighborhood to steal guavas. 

10. You’re Ugly, Too by Lorrie Moore — A history professor flies to Manhattan to spend Halloween weekend with her younger sister.

I LOVE THIS POST!!

I’d like to add:

11. Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor

12. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (this one is my favorite short story of all time)

13. The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

14. Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates

15. Désirée’s Baby by Kate Chopin

16. The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin

17. Impressions of an Indian Childhood by Zitkala-Ša

(I wanted to put little summaries for each of them, but I’m afraid I’d spoil the whole story if I did!)

adding a few more! all by women of color, & the first four were published within the last few years

18. “My Dear You,” Rachel Khong — love, loss, & absurdity in the afterlife

19. “The Husband Stitch,” Carmen Maria Machado — a feminist retelling of the folklore story “The Green Ribbon”

20. “Inventory,” Carmen Maria Machado — one woman’s retrospective list of her life’s sexual encounters

21. “Boys Go to Jupiter,” Danielle Evans — what happens after a white college student poses for a photo in a Confederate flag bikini

22. “Drinking Coffee Elsewhere,” ZZ Packer — a Black woman attends Yale University

oh i have some of these too! many are science-fiction or science-fantasy, because the woman in those genres are severely under-represented ! The first two authors are slightly older, but their works are so important in the development of the roles of women in scifi as a genre so!

23. “Those Who Walk Away from Omelas” and “Mountain Ways” by Ursula K. Le Guin — The first is a study of philosophical questions similar to the trolley problem, told in very loose form. The second is a science-fantasy story about two women navigating love and sexuality in their society’s polyamorous marriage rituals. But honestly you should read all of Le Guin’s short stories and novels, she’s amazing.

24. “Bloodchild” by Octavia Butler — One of my all-time FAVORITE short stories, about a future where humans live alongside large insect-like aliens, and serve as hosts for their eggs and larval young. It’s gruesome, gory, unsettling, and honestly pretty horrific but it’s really wonderful–if you can handle horror in your stories I highly recommended it. Butler’s novels are also wonderful, please check them out if you can (not all of them are this unsettling)

25. “The Girl-Thing Who Went Out for Sushi” by Pat Cadigan — A trans allegory in which future humans go through surgery to become invertebrate sea creatures (cephalopods and arthropods mostly) in order to better work in space. Wonderfully weird in so many ways.

26. “From the Lost Diary of Treefrog7” and “The Palm Tree Bandit” by Nnedi Okorafor — Lost Diary is a story about a woman and her husband exploring an alien jungle told through research log-style journal entries. Very much survival horror scifi. Palm Tree Bandit is told as a mother reciting a story to her daughter as she braids her hair, about her great-grandmother who started a kind of small revolution for women in Nigeria. Nnedi’s novels and other short stories, as well as her works within the comics industry, are all fantastic, so look into her more if you can!!!

Fleshing out that vague idea

YOU HAVE A PLOT. Well, okay, you have a character. Or maybe just this one cool image. Problem is, that’s all it is, and it’s hard to write an entire novel on a month with just a vague idea.

Now, you might say, “but I’ve worked on my character for so long they’re a wizard/vampire/space pirate rolled into one, how can I possibly fit that into a plot,” and I say to that, weirder books have been published, you’ll be fine. Our main goal is to figure out how to get that sweet space vampire fighting bisexual cyborg into a book you can write in thirty days. Though that seems challenging, never fear, for we are going to give you a working framework with which to move forward with. It goes like this:

Yes, we are talking about loglines. Don’t groan, I know these are hard. Our goal is simply to end up with a starting point. It doesn’t have to be pretty, or succinct. We are merely trying to find a starting point, so let’s tackle each one by one:

You now have the beginnings of a plot and where it’ll take you. There’s going to be more complications to carry you through to the finish line, and good god don’t stop writing them down if you’re on a roll, but this should at least get you out the gate. Good luck!

Here’s a fine list of my personal Original Character development resources. MENTALITY. LIST OF MENTAL CONDITIONS LIST OF PHOBIAS LIST OF ZODIAC SIGNS MYERS-BRIGGS PERSONALITY TEST MORAL ALIGNMENT TEST IDEONOMY PERSONALITY TRAITS LIST MANNERISMS. LIST OF HOBBIES WORDS TO DESCRIBE SPEECH & ACCENT LIST OF HABITS / QUIRKS & TICKS  LIST OF LANGUAGES  PHYSICALLY. LIST OF PIERCING PLACEMENTS EYE COLOUR CHARTS [ ONE & TWO ] LIST OF NATURAL HAIR COLOURS MRINITIALMAN HEIGHT CALCULATOR  SKIN TONE / FOUNDATION COLOUR CHARTS ‘RESTING FACE’ EXPRESSIVE TERMS LIST OF PHYSICAL ALIMENTS  OTHER. LIST OF CRIMINAL OFFENSES REAL TIME AGE & BIRTHDATE CALCULATOR

Five Core Scenes

Alright, y’all, I’m going to be reblogging plotting tools throughout most of October, but let’s do a stripped down, bare bones plot prep for anyone with just a vague idea. Let’s talk about the key parts of a plot outline, the Five Core Scenes.

Opening: This is your view of the world before you decide to toss your protagonist life upside down. Your goal is to establish two things:

Inciting Event: This can be tricky, but it’s basically The Point of No Return. Your character can’t go back to their old life, you blew it up. The door to the Ordinary World is closed. They witnessed a murder, got bit by a vampire, dumped by their boyfriend, etc. The character might think they can go back, but they can’t. This usually kicks off Act II.

Now, the middle is known as the dreaded slog, but I’m going to share a secrect: You want to split Act II into parts A and B, the middle split by…

False Victory/False Defeat: In the first half of Act II, your character is trying to solve their problem the wrong way. They may think the solution is to cooperate with the police, seek out a cure, try to win their boyfriend back, but they’re going to hit a wall, and hit it hard. In the False Victory turning point, your character thinks they’ve gotten what they want - only to realize it’s fixed nothing at all. In the False Defeat, all seems lost - but actually, they’ve found a new path. Either way, the second half of Act II will be doing things the Right Way - solving the murder themselves, embracing vampirism to find the douche to turned them, finally flirting back with that new neighbor, etc. There’s more urgency in your second half, because your character can know see the way to solve their problem - they just have to get there.

The Climax: No brainer, though you’re actually going to take a few steps back to the start of Act III to figure out how you get to the climax. If the climax is confronting the murderer, how did the protagonist figure out who that is? If it’s a showdown with the god of vampires, how do we track him down? You can write “big fight” at the start of your notes, but you’ll have an easier time actually writing it if you flesh out how it happened a bit more.

The Denouement: Yes, you need a denouement. Yes, it’s helpful to figure out how your story is resolved before you write The End. The whole point is the end of your story, the lesson you want to leave the readers, the emotion you want to have. Figuring this out first will make getting there a whole lot easier, trust me.

You are going to have plenty of important scenes in between, but pinning these down will make the rest a whole lot easier - and if you’re mostly a pantser, you can keep these big goals in mind as you write toward them.

I think there's a lot of value in spite writing. If you read something that has good ideas or themes but god awful execution I ENCOURAGE you to grab it with your grubby little fists and wrangle into something better

It's weird cause, I went to bed on Nov 3th feeling very serious, anxious stressed. It's now Nov 6th and I feel like I've snorted cocaine

Writing is a party and I, the writer, am the piñata.